95% of entrepreneurs, CEOs and CPs don’t know about SEM promotion

"For any company, SEO and SEM will be important means to acquire users from the Internet. Just like other channels, SEM has a certain degree of accuracy, significant effects, and controllable costs. It is a unique means of acquiring high-precision users." This was an interpretation of search engine marketing by Avanish Kaushik, a well-known expert in the field of digital marketing a long time ago. Search engine marketing has been developed in China for more than ten years. Large business owners who are highly dependent on search marketing and have large budgets have the financial ability to hire professional and experienced search marketers to manage it. However, most small and medium-sized business owners tend to just arrange a marketing-related employee or the boss to manage it part-time. Most of these people lack industry experience, professional guidance, and patience to study, so they often easily come to the conclusion that search marketing is "ineffective," "a scam," and "too expensive." But in fact, such statements are indeed biased. This time, at the invitation of the "Well-known APP Cooperation Group", based on my own many years of work experience, I would like to share some details with you.

SEM, which is the abbreviation of Search Engine Marketing, generally refers to paid advertising promotion on search engines, including the most common bidding keywords and various other forms of advertising derived from keyword searches, such as brand zones, online alliances , and Hong Media.

Today, this article will first focus on the most widely used Baidu bidding keyword promotion, which is most used by small and medium-sized business owners, and sort out some basic problems that are most often encountered in actual operations to help everyone effectively master this precision marketing method.

1. It is enough to choose these few keywords. There is no need to choose so many. It will be a waste to choose too many!

Dear friends, you should understand that bidding keywords are charged by clicks, not by how many keywords you have in your account, and display is also free. Assuming there are 100,000 keywords in the account, with 200,000 impressions per day, but the number of clicks is 0, no fees will be incurred. The more keywords you use, the better. Because there are a thousand ways of searching for a thousand people, the more words you use, the more users can find you through keywords.

For example, someone wants to buy a car, but the words searched by users at different stages of demand are different: those who have not yet selected a brand and are paying attention to newly launched cars will search for "new cars ", those who have determined the type of car to buy will search for "new mid-size cars", those who have price restrictions will search for "sedans around 180,000 yuan", those who are optimistic about the brand and want to communicate will search for "how about the Cruze", and those who have decided to buy a car and are looking for a 4S store will search for "Beijing Cruze dealers". Moreover, words with the same intention can also be expressed in different ways. For example, price-related words include "quote", "how much", "price", "is it expensive", "is it expensive", and so on.

Therefore, don’t be afraid of trouble. Fully and deeply understand the search habits of target users in your industry and cover all their search habits and behaviors to attract more target users.

Second, what words will users search for? There are so many that I can’t even think of them all!

There are rules to follow and tools to use when expanding keywords, but the premise is that you have a full understanding of the users in your industry. Generally speaking, there are several ways to expand:

After planning this category according to the above rules, use system tools to expand it. There are many ways to help expand keywords:

1. Account Tools - Keyword Planner (Click on the account homepage to enter the search promotion account, and find "Keyword Planner" in the tool center)

Enter a word root in the box and click search. The tool will recommend related keywords based on the word root and list the average daily search volume of this keyword, the search volume on PC and mobile terminals, the minimum entry price for the top three on the left, the intensity of competition, etc. Users can select appropriate keywords based on this information, or they can download the keyword information and filter it in the table.

Search box drop-down item: When you enter a keyword in the search box, it will automatically bring up keywords with higher search popularity.

Related searches: At the bottom of the web search, the system will list other related keywords that the user has searched for for reference

The most recommended of the above three methods is "Keyword Planner", which provides more comprehensive information support for keyword screening.

3. Where are my ads displayed?

In fact, this is the most basic issue that you should understand before doing bidding keyword promotion, including the ranking and display principles of keywords. Bidding keyword ads can be displayed on both the left and right sides of the search results, with a maximum of 10 on the left, with the word "promotion" and usually 3 displayed. There is a "promotion link" label in the upper right corner of the gray background, and a maximum of 8 displayed on the right side of each page. After a round of related ads is displayed, they will start to be displayed in a loop on the next page. See the figure below for details:

4. As long as I bid high, will my ad be ranked at the front?

Of course not. Price is certainly an important factor, but "quality" has a greater impact on the ranking. The ranking is based on the comprehensive ranking index, which is = bid * quality. The quality index is a coefficient given by the system based on the creative quality of the ad, ad click-through rate, account historical performance, etc. Among these three performances, "creative quality" has the greatest influence. The quality score in Baidu Fengchao system is rated with 5 stars out of 10 points. If the quality score is lower than 2 points, the advertisement will basically have no chance of being displayed. Therefore, if you want to get a better ranking with a lower bid, you need to optimize the quality of your keywords based on the above three performance indicators, to at least 7 points or above.

5. In this promotion plan, what does the promotion unit mean? No need to build so many plans and units, right? Is 1 enough? It's hard for me to manage so many buildings.

Although the "Well-known APP Cooperation Group" is composed of industry insiders, I would like to emphasize that the more professional they are, the more they need to formulate clearly defined promotion plans and promotion units. This is a very important basic work before promoting. If the plan and unit formation are not reasonable, it will not only affect the quality, but also make it more difficult for you to manage the account, especially writing advertising ideas, bidding, checking data reports and post-optimization. The establishment of a promotion plan focuses on distinguishing products, word categories, cycles, etc., while the establishment of a promotion unit mainly distinguishes the types of keywords. Refer to the following figure for example:

The promotion plan and promotion unit levels have different setting functions:

Mastering the hierarchical functions of plans and units, and building a clear and reasonable account structure in combination with promotion goals will make management and subsequent optimization easier.

6. The creative idea of ​​the advertisement must reflect our company name and phone number. People who really need it will call directly when they see the phone number, which also saves click fees.

Dear, ask yourself, if you need a certain service or want to buy something, would you just look at the company name and phone number and call for consultation without doing more in-depth research? What's more, now is the Internet age, and a large amount of pre-sales work is basically completed online, and users just go offline to complete their consumption. Years of Taobao system and major e-commerce systems have already made consumers more and more savvy. It is necessary to compare products from different stores, and it is also necessary to consult and compare repeatedly. The focus of advertising creativity should be on reflecting the selling points and advantages of your products and services, stimulating users' attention and interest, and then allowing users to contact you more quickly and conveniently.

Creative format requirements:

Left: Promotional form, title within 25 characters, description within 2 lines, totaling within 80 characters, each line within 40 characters; Promotional link form, title within 25 characters, description within 1 line, within 40 characters;

Right side: Title within 14 characters, description 2 lines totaling 40 characters, each line within 20 characters.

Creative writing requirements and skills:

Basic requirements:

Writing tips:

Each promotion unit must have at least 3 creatives, 2 long and 1 short, 2 for the promotion and promotion link on the left, and 1 for the right;

Important content should be reflected in the first line of the title and description;

Use wildcards (floating red) in the title description. Try to increase the number of wildcards in the creative under the premise of ensuring the smoothness of the creative, and use them at the beginning of the first line of the title and description as much as possible; reasonable use of wildcards can increase the chance of floating red, improve the relevance of keywords and creatives, and quickly attract the attention of netizens;

Be sure to write creative ideas around the keywords in the promotion unit, and keep the creative content highly relevant to the keywords in the unit. However, the prerequisite is that the keywords have been grouped clearly and reasonably, and keywords with the same part of speech and core words are grouped in one promotion group.

Use multi-dimensional creative forms, such as pictures, text, forms, videos, etc. to attract users' attention

Write creative ideas in multiple dimensions for the same unit to achieve the best display effect within limited characters and display positions

Ways to write an attractive creative:

Highlight product/service features, company advantages, etc.

Write around the unit theme and highlight the relationship (relevance) between the search terms and the actual business

It is best to include prices, promotions, discounts or promises

For the same product or service, write about different selling points around the unit theme

Use as many good call-to-action words as possible, such as buy now, act now, etc.

Add appropriate grammatical punctuation marks such as "!, ?, -", and use concise short sentences

7. What is the appropriate advertising bid?

First of all, it should be clear that bid ≠ ad click price. Ad click price = next person's comprehensive ranking index/your quality score + 0.01, which will never exceed your bid. It is recommended to set the bid according to the intensity of keyword bidding, your budget, and keyword ranking plan. You can use the bidding tool to make an estimate first. But bidding is a dynamic process after all, and it needs to be adjusted frequently according to changes in the promotion period and bidding environment. For example, during the peak Internet access hours of 9-12 am and 5-9 pm, a higher bid needs to be set, while during off-peak hours, the bid can be lowered.

System Tools - Estimation Tool (Click on the account homepage to enter the search promotion account, and you can find the "Estimation Tool" in the tool display at the bottom of the page)

The rankings of up to 100 keywords can be estimated at one time. When estimating, you can choose the estimated region and keyword matching mode. The estimated clicks are based on historical click display data to estimate the clicks that can be obtained today. The actual clicks are also affected by factors such as budget constraints, bid adjustments of other customers, and search behavior of netizens. The estimated ranking is the ranking of the keyword among all the promotions that can be displayed. The actual display position is affected by the quality.

8. I have just started to launch the campaign, so I will try to see how effective it is. I will set a daily budget of several dozen yuan. If the effect is good, I will increase the budget!

For most small and medium-sized business owners, the promotion budget is limited, and they hope to spend it frugally. But it should be clear that paid ranking is charged on a click basis, and the less you invest means fewer people will visit your website and learn about you. Even with the lowest click price of a few cents per click, dozens of dollars can't even bring 100 clicks. You hope to have sales and other conversions from this limited click traffic. My dear, I can only say that you are dreaming! On the one hand, budget setting should be combined with your own psychological budget setting, and on the other hand, it should also be combined with industry conditions and the ranking plan of the keywords you choose.

Through the "Keyword Planning Master", we can understand the daily search volume of the keyword and the entry price of the ranking on the left. Through the "Estimate Tool", we can understand the keyword's bid, ranking, and click status, so that we can estimate the budget range that needs to be set. Adjust the budget based on the estimated results and your own budget capabilities.

9. I don’t have a lot of budget right now. Can I set up promotion in certain areas and time periods first?

Of course you can. When we talked about the previous planning and unit account structure, we mentioned the functions that can be set at each level. Regional promotion can be set at both the account and plan levels, down to prefecture-level cities. However, if regions are set at both levels, actual ad display will be based on the regional settings at the plan level.

At the planning level, you can set time periods for promotion. Up to 4 time periods can be set in one day, but the start and end times must be on the hour (Google is more flexible).

10. I searched for keywords, but my ad is not there.

There are many reasons why you may not be able to see your ads. It is generally recommended to check from the account to the keyword level:

To make sure you are viewing the ad display area for the bidding keyword, check the left and right sides of the first page, and only the right side from the second page onwards.

Check if the keyword you searched has been submitted in your account. If not, you will not see it.

If you have submitted, check the status and related settings of the account, plan, unit, keyword, and creativity.

Check whether the account and keyword plan have exceeded the daily budget.

Check whether the regional settings of the account and keyword plan include your location.

After troubleshooting the account and plan issues, check whether the status of the keyword and creative is valid. If either status is invalid, the ad will not be visible.

I have been applying for this for so many days, why is there no effect at all?

When it comes to the effect, it needs to be divided into two stages. One is the front-end, that is, when arriving at the website and before arriving; the second is after arriving at the website; and the third is from the website to offline. The front-end data includes exposure and clicks, while the back-end data is much more complicated, including PV, UV, bounce rate, second bounce rate, visit duration, conversion volume (online consultation volume, phone call volume, form submission volume, order volume, etc.). Both the front-end and the back-end can be considered promotion effects. To determine whether the effect is good or not, advertisers need to clearly know the purpose of the promotion and at which stage the effect should be achieved before the promotion. Only after the goal is clear can we formulate promotion strategies and the series of preparatory work mentioned above around this goal, otherwise deviations will occur.

No matter which end the effect is, we must look at the data. The media's data background provides very detailed data function reports. Through the data reports, you can see data reports from accounts to keywords, creativity, regions, time periods, rankings and other categories. If the Baidu statistics monitoring code is installed on the website, you can also monitor various types of data on the back end.

How to view data in the background: Go to the homepage to search for promotions → click Promotion Management → the tool [Data Report] at the bottom of the page

Factors that affect the performance of search promotion front-end data:

Find out the reasons for poor front-end performance based on the data report, and then adjust and optimize the influencing factors based on the above relationship map.

Factors that affect the performance of search promotion backend data:

To view the backend data, you can only install the free Baidu Statistics, or third-party monitoring codes such as GA, doubleclick, admaster, etc. that are more commonly used by advertisers, and download the monitoring data report to view and analyze it. Back-end optimization mainly involves website access experience and content level. Analysis and optimization are much more complicated than front-end. How to analyze and optimize will also be a huge knowledge system.

Noun interpretation:

Visits: The number of sessions a visitor has on a website. A visitor may browse multiple pages in one visit, but only one visit is recorded. If a visitor does not reopen or refresh the website's webpage within 30 minutes, or closes the browser , the visit count will be +1 the next time the visitor visits.

Pageviews: PV, a user is recorded once without opening a page

Unique Visitors: The number of unique visitors. If the same visitor visits the website multiple times within one day, only one visitor is counted.

New Visitor Ratio Calculation Formula: New Visitors / Total Visitors (in a day)

Bounce rate: The percentage of visits that left the website after viewing only one page.

Conversion rate : calculation formula = number of conversions / number of visits

Average visit duration: calculation formula = total visit duration / number of visits

Average number of page views: calculation formula = page views / number of visits

Since the theme of this article is mainly about the basic issues of SEM, we will write another article in the future to discuss in depth the optimization of website pages.